The Asia Cup gets underway in Dubai on Saturday and it does so with two of the full member nations meeting in Group B of the competition when Afghanistan take on Sri Lanka to open up a more important tournament than some renewals of this event might be.
I say that because the format this year is 20 overs and with a T20 World Cup less than a month after this tournament ends, this is a great way for all the teams involved in that competition to prepare in an extremely competitive event in its own right.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan head over to the Asia Cup having warmed up for the tournament with a series in Ireland recently. It would have to be said that their showing in that series wasn’t really what they were looking for, especially in the first two games, and losing it was certainly a blow for their confidence heading into this tournament and the T20 World Cup which follows it. The one thing which would ease those concerns are that conditions here should suit them a lot more.
The first stage of this competition is a bit of a nonsense as we only lose one team in each group so the team which wins their first match will take a lot of pressure off of themselves and they can build into the next stage of the event. That will be the aim of Afghanistan here and if they are going to win this you would imagine their spin quota will need to bowl well but importantly their batters will need to show their best stuff as well. Neither happened often enough in Ireland.
Sri Lanka
This is a big few months for Sri Lanka. They looked like they had the makings of a fabulous young outfit when they powered through the opening stage of the T20 World Cup last year but things didn’t go to plan against the big boys in that tournament. A year on though they will go to Australia as dark horses for the title, particularly if they have a positive campaign here. This will be the first time we have seen Sri Lanka in 20 over action since they were beaten 2-1 at home by Australia in June.
Dating back to the end of that tournament, Sri Lanka have won just three of their last 15 T20 internationals over the last year or so. They are better than that but still require their big players to stand up and be counted. They have those with them with the bat in this tournament but will be without a key bowler in Dushmantha Chameera, who got injured in the week leading into this event. That might put the pressure on Wanindu Hasaranga.
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Team News
Afghanistan could go into this match with as many as four spinners with Noor Ahmad having joined up with the squad. They never really got going in the Ireland series until Hazratullah Zazai entered proceedings so he is expected to play.
Sri Lanka will be without the spearhead of their attack in the form of Dushmantha Chameera which looks set to have opened a spot up for Dilshan Madushanka to make his debut. Incredibly there is talk that Pathum Nissanka could miss out.
Betting
There is likely to be a lot of spin bowled in this match which is likely to negate the scoring that is done in it. This Dubai International Stadium isn’t the highest scoring ground anyway and with potentially 24 overs of spin being bowled in this match I don’t expect that to change. In terms of out and out batting I’m still not sure about Afghanistan and it remains to be seen just how well they go against what is likely to be a decent attack.
Sri Lanka can get bogged down as well with the bat and with the Afghanistan attack potentially only having one seamer in it I would imagine the Sri Lanka batters are going to find it hard to build a rhythm. It might also be that Sri Lanka need the run here having not played a competitive T20 in a couple of months so when you weigh everything up I don’t expect this match to have more than 304.5 runs in it.
Tips
Back Under 304.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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